At present I have some early bound volumes of The Cyclecar and its successor, Light Car and Cyclecar, all pre 1915. These are stuffed with interesting things including much early racing exploits, eg the 1913 Cyclecar Grand Prix, won by WG McMinnies on a Morgan (or by someone in a Bedelia depending on which source you check!!)

The magazine to find was published by the committee which ran the Targa Florio in Sicily, which documents the early TF. Called Rapiditas, snap it up if you see it!! I have some scans of the 1912 edition, but have been looking for originals since competing in the 2006 centenario with the 1911 SCAT TF.

Well if books are the thing, and you are not only talking about contemporary books or magazines (Charles Jarrott's book was first published in 1906 but most people have later editions, mine is 1956), try taking a look at TNFr Robert Dick's amazing book on Mercedes and Auto Racing in the Belle Epoque, 1895 - 1915. Its so well researched and illustrated that I think you will find it a worthwhile addition to a motoring library.

I found a couple of bags of Motorsports in my parents loft in the summer I thought I sold them all back in the 1990's the oldest one I think was May or June '77 it had a pic of Waldegard driving his Escort to victory on the Safari Rally.

I have late 60s to the 90s by the 100. I only buy one magazine now and that is really nostalgia, dispersed with Thupercar storys.
Unfortunatly most magazines have forgotten anything except Thupercar and a bit of F1 here in Oz.
National series, yet alone club meetings scarcely get a mention. Even the so called online stuff so called updated daily has little true motorsport these days. just the professional motorised entertainment.

Several years ago I got in touch with Ida Luke, the daughter of Bud Luke, who drove a Bugatti in the Australian Grand Prix a time or two in the late forties...

Her father had died, but he'd left behind bound editions of Australian Motor Sport magazines 1946 to 1950, she offered them to me at a reasonable price because she felt I'd get much more use out of them than she would. Other than that, the oldest thing I have is a photocopy of a page from Motor Sport in early 1940 with the report on Lobethal in it.

Well, I guess I probably do have other odd photocopied pages around from the thirties...

Some original 20s and 30s books, plus reprints of Rose (1909), Jarrott and others. Motor Sport back to 1947. Some original 1930s Motors. An original article from a French magazine circa 1927, complete with Geo Ham illustration. Sheaves of photocopies. Plus the 1924-49 Motor Sport DVD and PDFs and JPEGs of stuff going back to the 1890s ...

My interest in Rapiditas (post #2 above) was sparked by researching the famous incident in the Targa Florio of 1912 when the English driver Cyril Snipes drove his works SCAT in the first Giro di Sicilia non stop for over 22 hours, and then fell into a deep sleep from which his faithful mechanic Pedrini had some difficulty wakening him to complete the race and win in just under 24 hours.. According to legend, a bucket of cold water did the trick!!

Aware that the best contemporary reports were in the ultra rare magazine Rapiditas, I was delighted to discover that the Revs Institute in Florida had copies and were able to make copies available. However the 1912 issue of Rapiditas makes hardly any mention of this incident. I still wonder where the story was written up as its quite possibly the strangest story in motor sport...

Some issues of Speed from the late 1930s are the oldest magazines I have. My oldest publication is The Year's Automobile Sport 1905 published by Michelin and one of the oldest motor sport annuals published.

By the way, I consider Rapiditas to be a book, rather than a magazine since its rather large and has hard covers. I had the opportunity to examine the complete 9-volume run originally owned by Giovanni Canestrini and now in Il Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile di Torino. It's quite an impressive publication! Cover images of all of the volumes, plus many more very rare car books, can be seen at the Motor Bookcase web site.

My earliest magazines and books in real terms are probably both from 1946, several issues of "Das Auto" and the Indianapolis Race History (original edition, with a hand-written dedication dated 1946), also reprints of Gerald Rose (1909) and other books or article collections going back even further. In bits and bytes, I have lots of stuff (mostly newspaper reports, but also excerpts from magazines) from the 19th century onwards, including some complete racing magazines and programmes from the thirties. Although I hate the thought of moving all this in the near future, I wouldn't for the life of me part with anything! And that includes even more non-racing books, magazines, record collections etc. Me, a collector? Nah... I'm a user!

Le Petit Journal supplement with info on the Paris-Rouen trial of 1894, although I'm not sure whether it can be considered as it isn't a magazine collection but an odd copy... Otherwise, probably one of the books that Barré Lyndon wrote during the 1930s.

oldest items I have are:
Weekly Ilustrated from 1921, with a photo from 1st Rally od Poland (then named Automobile Raid of Polish Automobileclub)
Regulations of 1928 Rally of Poland
several issues of the Weekly Ilustrated from late 1920s early 1930s, covering Rally of Poland and Lwow Grand Prix

Oldest item from event I attended is from 1977 polish racing championship event in Kielce.

Not being a historian, I have nothing at all old apart from a June 1958 Motor Sport which I bought at Goodwood out of pure nostalgia as it's the first one I ever bought and discovered "The World according to DSJ"

My oldest magazine is The Motor, April 13, 1937 which is minus the cover and the first couple of pages. The adverts list things like an SS Airline for 135 pounds or a type 57 Bugatti for 900 pounds.
My earliest book Vol 1 of The Book of the Motor Car by Rankin Kennedy and the preface is dated 1913 - there are no other publishing dates. This volume speaks of engines. carburettors, ignition & lighting, Vol II is about gears and transmissions and Vol III is about fuels and suspensions.

Around 1970 I found a stack of Autosport mags from '55, '56 and '57, which had been cashed in by David Van Dal whom I hadn't met at that time but who had been responsible for the design of my 60's car's space frame. One great cover pic shows the start of the '57 Sebring Twelve Hour, with Harry Schell striking an extravagant pose among the crowd as he films his co-driver [Moss] sprinting for their 300S.

Around 1970 I found a stack of Autosport mags from '55, '56 and '57, which had been cashed in by David Van Dal whom I hadn't met at that time but who had been responsible for the design of my 60's car's space frame. One great cover pic shows the start of the '57 Sebring Twelve Hour, with Harry Schell striking an extravagant pose among the crowd as he films his co-driver [Moss] sprinting for their 300S.

My latest magazine is this weeks Autosport with an excellent feature about Graham Hill including some very interesting thoughts on his father by Damon.

David

Same here, though I believe the oldest magazine in my collection would be 1.4, as I believe my 1.1 is a reprint. I must add that it is also at least second-hand as well. I wasn't born in 1950, indeed my gran was only a month past her 2nd birthday. I have all bar 100 or so in between.

I forgot to include in my earlier post that my oldest book is, Case History by Norman Smith published in 1958

This book has very detailed chapters on the Auto Unions, the pre and post war Mercedes Benz and some of the significant grand prix cars of the 1950s all written in a very interesting and entertaining style.

Thanks John. At seven quid a pop it must be time they were 'cashed in' again!I forgot some other oldies I have; My father used to get 'Autocar' in the early fifties. I haven't seen them for some years but they're still lurking in the shed. One has a coverage of the 1953 'Rolt/Hamilton/Jaguar' Le Mans event. Oldest 'serious' book is also 1953; George Monkhouse's 'Grand Prix Racing Facts & Figures'.Oldest motoring book is a birthday present from 1951; 'The Wonder Book of Motors' which is full of photos and paintings of Brooklands, ERAs in hillclimbs, John Cobb, Goldie Gardner, Geoffrey Healey winning the Touring Car class of the Mille Miglia, in a Healey of course, and lots of quaint and delightful pics of a very different Great Britain.

My only magazine purchase these days is Australian Muscle Car. Still very interesting though quite a few errors are creeping in.
And a totally seperate Xmas present was 'Muscle Car Mania' Not bad but a lot of generalisiations.
I did hint for Rays 5000 book,, but I guess it was not advailable at the local shopping centre!!

Oldest book: Mein Mann der Rennfahrer (My husband, the racing driver) by Elli Rosemeyer-Beinhorn. Obviously it's about the life of Bernd Rosemeyer. Published in 1938, it's written in old German "Fraktur" script so I have some difficulties reading it even though I speak German. Apparently it's signed by the author herself on the first page.

I don't have such old magazines, just a couple of German ones titled "Autorennen" from the 70s.

I found a couple of bags of Motorsports in my parents loft in the summer I thought I sold them all back in the 1990's the oldest one I think was May or June '77 it had a pic of Waldegard driving his Escort to victory on the Safari Rally.

Update at last weeks Autosport International I noticed a couple of 1959 Autosport Magazines on the Ferret Fotographic stand and per chance one was dated February 27th and so covered the week I was born.

Cover Story British Empire Motor Club 7th Annual Winter Rally by Rose Monroe

Editorial Brooks and Ferrari

Features included Formula Libre Seasonal Survey and An Account of The Chequered Flag stables first season by Michael Beuttler.

The completely new, with flawless sporting pedigree, MG Magnette Mk III was 'planned to bring out the expert in you' promising more space, more verve and more luxury.

MH Lawson won the London M.C. Coventry Cup, no mention of what sort of car he was driving but the reg appears to be NBY 2.

And the bargain in the classifieds was probably the C-Type chassis 049 going for a snip at £1,000 ono, while a JAP Fomula 3 sprint special was going for £50, the owner had no phone so prospective purchasers had to write to the address provided

Just noticed Autosport in those days came out on a Friday, presumably thanks to the absence of phones amongst staff

Update at last weeks Autosport International I noticed a couple of 1959 Autosport Magazines on the Ferret Fotographic stand and per chance one was dated February 27th and so covered the week I was born.

Cover Story British Empire Motor Club 7th Annual Winter Rally by Rose Monroe

Editorial Brooks and Ferrari

Features included Formula Libre Seasonal Survey and An Account of The Chequered Flag stables first season by Michael Beuttler.

The completely new, with flawless sporting pedigree, MG Magnette Mk III was 'planned to bring out the expert in you' promising more space, more verve and more luxury.

MH Lawson won the London M.C. Coventry Cup, no mention of what sort of car he was driving but the reg appears to be NBY 2.

And the bargain in the classifieds was probably the C-Type chassis 049 going for a snip at £1,000 ono, while a JAP Fomula 3 sprint special was going for £50, the owner had no phone so prospective purchasers had to write to the address provided

Just noticed Autosport in those days came out on a Friday, presumably thanks to the absence of phones amongst staff

There's a thread somewhere in which Simon Taylor details the switch from Friday to Thursday. It occurs around Monza 1969.

Was just going through some old Autosport's I bought recently and noticed that the magazine was date for the Friday of each week. Does anyone know exactly when the switch was made to the Thursday, it appears to be between 1967 and 1970.

I can answer this, because I was the Editor of Autosport at the time. (Goodness, it was over 40 years ago!) In 1969, after struggling with dreadful print quality from our letterpress printers, we changed to the then new-fangled offset litho process. This was not only to improve quality (in theory, at least) but also to allow us to get the magazine distributed on Wednesday for a Thursday day of sale, without compromising our Tuesday evening close for press. That way we'd able to scoop our deadly rival, Motoring News, which came out on Thursday then, but went to press on Monday night.

The first issue of Autosport printed offset was dated September 12th 1969. That was actually a Friday, because we weren't sure if our new distribution would work. It did, so we felt brave enough to date the next issue September 18th 1969, a Thursday. However I forgot to change the small print on the editorial page that said "Published every Friday" to "Published every Thursday" until the September 25th issue. My excuse was that I was rather busy.....

Despite the rather grandiose list of personnel on the masthead - including people like Paddy McNally, John Bolster and John Davenport - and a faithful band of keen but negligibly paid weekend reporters, the magazine itself was actually produced by just four people. In 1969 those four were Deputy Editor Quentin Spurring, Assistant Editors Jeff Hutchinson and Justin Haler, and me, each of us producing many thousands of words a week. At 25 years of age, I was the oldest, and as the Editor I was the best paid: after deductions I took home £26 a week. There were no computers, no e-mail, no mobile phones, no digital cameras, even the fax machine hadn't been invented. Our only high-tech gadget was the portable typewriter. The logistical dramas of pulling in the stories and the pictures each week could fill a book, and probably would if I thought anybody would want to read it. But the only way to make the magazine happen, without publishing software and e-mail, was to work round the clock in a little cabin next to the print works, so that we could write our copy and proof and pass pages on the spot.

So we would all cover race meetings around Britain and Europe on Saturday and Sunday, rush back from wherever to London on Sunday night in our standard-issue 850 Minis and write our reports, then work at the printers from 8am Monday through Monday night to 6pm Tuesday. We would often work through without a break, writing Pit & Paddock news stories, subbing ropey copy from those faithful weekenders, chasing stories on the phone (you could ring up World Champions for a chat in those days, and there were no PR men), doing our own layouts and passing page proofs. We subsisted on bought-in fish-and-chips, and if the issue was going well we might snatch a kip in our standard-issue 850 Minis in the car park. We laughed a lot because, if you're tired enough, your sense of humour becomes gradually more and more juvenile. I know we had an Editorial Team Fart Graph on the wall, which was kept scrupulously up to date.

On Tuesday night, when it was all over, we'd all fall into the nearest pub and get drunk. Wednesday was our sabbath, when I went to the laundrette and watched my socks going round. Thursday we had a meeting with the Haymarket suits to thrash out the ed/ad (editorial/adverting) page ratio, and read our newly-minted issue and groan at all the mistakes. Friday we wrote Features (and Readers' Letters under assumed names if a page's-worth of decent letters hadn't come in), and Saturday the cycle started again, at anywhere from Montlhery to Mallory Park. For five years I was permanently tired, and I'm not sure if the magazine was any good, but I've never had so much fun in my life.

I have just been reorganising one of my book cupboards and found an Austin Magazine from July 1933 on the cover is the latest
Austin 10 on a beach with some bathing beauties in the latest swimwear. It is in excellent condition and contains pages and pages of
advertisements and travel stories. It is volume 10 no 6. I also found an Autocar from 1950.

Lord Montague's Car Magazine published an annual Road Book, and I have a 1910 edition--sort of road atlas plus gazetteer of things important to motorists (pubs, hills, where you can get batteries, where you can get fuel, tyres, mechanics etc.

At the very back is this cheering little feature:

The Chief Hills in England
Many motorists wish to try their cars at hill-climbing, and the appended list of good test hills may, therefore, be of use to them.

Lord Montague's Car Magazine published an annual Road Book, and I have a 1910 edition--sort of road atlas plus gazetteer of things important to motorists (pubs, hills, where you can get batteries, where you can get fuel, tyres, mechanics etc.

At the very back is this cheering little feature:

The Chief Hills in EnglandMany motorists wish to try their cars at hill-climbing, and the appended list of good test hills may, therefore, be of use to them.

More sporting than you might think, Terry! Birdlip, Dashwood, Garrowby, Sunrising, Sutton Bank and Westerham all have competition history. All before 1910 except Sutton Bank, which was used between 1914 and 1924.

First climb at Birdlip was on June 30th 1906, over a 1900-yard course - won by a Daimler. Viscount Ingestre (son of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot) set FTD on formula (classes were by price!) over a 1 mile course on June 29th 1907 - on, of course, a Talbot. The 1907 event was apparently very badly run and attracted many complaints from the locals, so the local rozzers stepped in and banned any further use of it. The final climb at Birdlip was in May 1924 as part of the RAC Small Car Trial.

First climb at Birdlip was on June 30th 1906, over a 1900-yard course - won by a Daimler. Viscount Ingestre (son of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot) set FTD on formula (classes were by price!) over a 1 mile course on June 29th 1907 - on, of course, a Talbot. The 1907 event was apparently very badly run and attracted many complaints from the locals, so the local rozzers stepped in and banned any further use of it. The final climb at Birdlip was in May 1924 as part of the RAC Small Car Trial.